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Save to an Alpha channel
Create your selection and choose Select>Save to Alpha Channel. The
Save to Alpha window will open. Specify the document you wish to save
the selection to and click on New Channel. This will open a dialog box
for you to enter a name for your selection. Click OK twice to return
to your document.
To retrieve the channel from within the same document, choose Selection>Load
from Document. Choose the selection you named and click OK. The selection
will return to the exact spot in your image. This is sometimes not desirable
though, as you can see in the sample at the left. I wanted the pelicans
to fall within the outline of the loon, but only their feet are showing.
Hardly a stirring image.
You can move the Alpha selection with a few steps though.
Save the image you wish to add the selection to with a new name. This
copy will be used just to create a mask in the correct location and
we need to protect the original.
With the original document open, load the selection into
the newly saved copy of the image you wish to add the selection to.
The selection will be in the wrong position. Move the selection to the
location you desire. The image contained within the image will come
with the move, but this is OK. Choose Selection>Save to Alpha Channel
as above.
Keep this document open and return to or open the untouched copy of
the destination image. Choose Selection>Load from Alpha Channel and
select the Alpha channel from the image we just created. The selection
will be in the correct location now. You can see the results at the
left. OK, so pelican heads in a loon shape is not exactly award winning
graphics work, but you have to admit it is better than pelican feet.
And it does illustrate the method very well.
Note: Be careful with this since you are risking
your original image if you are not careful to save a copy before you
begin your manipulations.
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